Filmmaker and Bad Robot co-CEO J.J. Abrams discusses his approach to creativity and producing successful film and television projects.
Insight
Abrams: Extreme project constraints usually end in failure, not success
“I feel like those kind of constraints can be incredibly exciting, and they can also be awful. And I've been in both situations, and I keep promising myself I'll never do that again. It doesn't usually end happily, that story.”
Disclosure
Abrams: The 'magic box' is a metaphor, not a working process
“I don't ever think about the magic box when I'm working on a project, and it's become this thing where people are always like, so, you know, using the magic box. I'm like, I don't use the magic box. It's a metaphor.”
Assertion Supported
Abrams designed The Boring Company logo and produced its first hat
“I went back to the bad robot office, and I thought I had an idea for a really boring logo for the boring company, so I made up the logo, and I gave it to our workshop, and I said, is there any way we could make this hat today? Beth in the workshop took the log…”
Disclosure
Abrams: Bad Robot uses cross-division reviews to catch creative mistakes internally
“One of the things we're doing lately is saying, can we use the different divisions within Bad Robot to be additive and comment on what the others are doing, so that if something is happening in theater, what do the TV people think about that, and what do they …”
Assertion Supported
Kathleen Kennedy hired 15-year-old J.J. Abrams to restore Steven Spielberg's films
“She had this idea to give those two movies, instead of giving them to, say, the Smithsonian, she had the idea of calling two utter strangers that were 15 years old. We weren't 30 years old between us, and she gave us these movies that needed to be repaired. Wo…”
Assertion Supported
Bad Robot's famous logo was an After Effects placeholder made by Abrams
“So I had them both say, bad robot, together, into my laptop. I put that on the little animation in After Effects that I did, and I turned it in, I thought, I'll change it later. And I just never changed it, and it just became the company.”